17th century… The Newgate Calendar 24 Mar 201624 Mar 2016 People in the eighteenth century believed that they were living in a crime-ridden society. In addition to Capt. Alexander Smith’s and Capt. Charles Johnson’s criminal biographies, the Proceedings of the…
18th century… Edgworth Bess, a Prostitute (fl. 1723-24) 12 Mar 201616 Mar 2016 This is a blog post written for my friend, Dr. Kate Lister, and her 'Whores of Yore' project. All illustrations featured in the article are from original nineteenth-century books in…
18th century… The Victorian Underworld 24 Feb 2016 This is the text of a public talk given at Abbey House Museum, Kirkstall, Leeds on 1 March 2015 to complement their Crime and Punishment Exhibition. Introduction The history of…
17th century… Charles Johnson’s ‘Lives of the Highwaymen’ (1734) 14 Feb 20164 Sep 2016 There is no reference in any historical archives to a Captain named Charles Johnson. The name is most likely a pseudonym for a writer whose identity is now lost to…
15th Century… Christmas in Newgate Gaol 23 Dec 2015 Newgate gaol was London’s most infamous gaol. It was built in the twelfth century as a place to hold prisoners until judges were available to debate their innocence. The original…
17th century… Jackson’s Recantation (1674) 10 Dec 201510 Dec 2015 In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries crime, and in particular highway robbery, was a problem. Whether crime was actually as bad as Henry Fielding gloomily surmised, that the…
